Very few business websites do not have a content management system (CMS) these days. The tools for creating an easy way to add and update content for your site are so easy to use and implement that even small businesses can easily put together a website using WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla with or without the help of a web design and development company. These ‘stock’ installations of these popular open source content management systems offer many great features that the average business will be able to use, and skinning them to look like a company’s unique identity can be quite simple to do if you just want to change the basic colors and logos.

Larger websites, however, can be much more complex to set up and often have unique needs that the basic installation of one of these free, open source systems does not have ‘out of the box’. For example, Drupal may have a user registration module, but your organization’s entire registration workflow and process may have drastically different needs. The question is: are you compromising what you want or getting your content management system to work the way you want? I will always recommend the latter. There are so many options out there that you should never have to compromise on your vision.

There are three ways to approach the challenge of truly unique needs and requirements:

1. Modify an open source content management system to fit your needs.

Again, this is something I’ve done countless times and it’s definitely possible. If you are drastically modifying the core of the CMS, I highly recommend that you find a company that has a lot of experience with the content management system you are using. You want to make sure that it will be relatively easy to update the core system without making too many modifications. A less experienced programmer could unknowingly make a change to the underlying functionality of the content management system that will prove problematic later.

2. Find a content management system that has the functionality you’re looking for, or something close to it.

This could involve moving to a proprietary and licensed Content Management System. There is certainly nothing wrong with this option, and many larger organizations have found that the open source CMS options out there are good, but they are not tailored to the larger enterprise mindset and need for scalability. There are plenty of great licensed CMS platforms out there, ranging from $5,000/year to over $100,000/year, and like anything else, the more you pay, the more flexibility, expandability, and technical support you get. You will also be able to customize the system to your liking by working with the CMS company itself or with a preferred provider. Obviously, companies and organizations with little or no annual budget for licenses will quickly find that what they are looking for is out of reach and may look again at open source options.

3. Create your own Content Management System

Sometimes there are such specific functional and workflow needs for your website or web-based application that it doesn’t make sense to use a standard open source or other proprietary CMS. For a site that interacts with other unique systems, has unique user/member needs, or has only one aspect that needs to be controlled by a WYSIWYG editor, it sometimes makes sense to develop a custom content management system that handles these parts of your website. The advantages of a custom CMS is that it does EXACTLY what you want it to do, the way you want it to. The downside, of course, is that if you want to switch web development providers, you’ll want to make sure that your new provider can work with your system. The benefit of an open source system is that there is a large community of developers familiar with the system, and the benefit of a proprietary system is that most of the time there is a network of highly qualified preferred vendors who can help you if you need to switch web development vendors.

Choosing a web content management system is not an easy task, but the most important thing to keep in mind is that your CMS should not determine what your website can do. Make sure you find the one that will enable you and your organization to achieve your goals.